📚Top Ten Tuesday – Books I read in one sitting (or I would if I had the time)📚

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Today’s post is all about books that I read in one sitting, or that I would have done if I had the time to. While there aren’t many recently that I’ve been able to read in one go, due to time constraints, there are definitely some from when I was younger!

1 – Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. I could easily read this book in one sitting, I find it so easy to devour this one!

2 – Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. I remember vividly when this came out, I read it in one day where I literally only moved to use the toilet or to get a drink.

3 – Goosebumps Horrorland Series. If I remember rightly my re-read of this series a few years ago took place across one full day. Granted they’re only short books but I was so desperate to find out what happened that I just powered through them.

4 – Matilda by Roald Dahl. This is one from my childhood that I never ever tire of reading!

5 – The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Not so much with my re-reads of this book but the very first time I read it I literally flew through it, I couldn’t put it down.

6 – Chopping Spree by Angela Sylvaine. Now this one was helped by how short the story was, I didn’t think it was going to be that short, but I devoured this in one sitting and it was SO worth it.

7 – Me and Mr Jones by Lucy Diamond. This one was just so easy to read that I completely lost any sense of time and carried on until I finished the whole thing!

And moving onto ones that I would love to read in one sitting if I could…

8 – The Pastel Effect by Arly Carmack. This book gave me all of the feels and was so bloody good that I would love nothing more than to be able to re-read it in one go, without any interruptions so that I could fully immerse myself into the story.

9 – The Shining by Stephen King. I absolutely love the atmosphere of this book and I always get disappointed when I have to put it down as it spoils it for me, so to be able to read this is one sitting would be PERFECT.

10 – The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Now I probably won’t re-read this one but if I could erase it from my memory and then read it again I would do so in one sitting, I felt like I was constantly on edge and I needed to keep reading to find out what would happen next. Every chapter was a cliffhanger.

And there you have it, 7 books that I absolutely flew through in one sitting and 3 that I would love to have done so if I just had the time!

Let me know if you’re taking part in TTT so I can check out your post too.

Until next time, Em xxx

ARC – The Pastel Effect, Arly Carmack – A Review.

Hello friends I am very excited to bring you a review of The Pastel Effect by Arly Carmack. A huge thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial publishers for the advanced copy of this book. The Pastel Effect by Arly Carmack was published on the 25th November 2020.

Overall rating – 5 out of 5 stars.

I honestly think The Pastel Effect is my favourite read of the year so far, I adored this book from start to finish and I genuinely do not have a criticism for it…

From the start I was drawn into this story and I loved the way it was presented to us a couple of teenagers trying to navigate the incredibly stressful experience that is high school. In fact, a lot of what was written resonated with me and reminded me of my own experiences in school and I think that’s part of the reason why I loved it so much, it felt very real.

The book itself was beautiful. Every word written and spoken was carefully crafted to bring us happiness, or sadness, or excitement. There we no shortage of emotions that I felt during my read of The Pastel Effect.

I loved the characters that we were on this journey with, every single one of them felt relatable.

The relationships that the author built up with Caroline and her Dad (Teddy) was stunning, I was moved so many times throughout this book. We were shown a strong relationship between Dad and daughter and we were shown Teddy as a single Dad and how he raised Caroline into this strong young woman. The whole backstory they had was amazing.

I loved how Tressa (Caroline’s Mom) had this influence throughout the book, without her actually being there as well. The author featured her beautifully and brought her to life through the pages of her diary.

Cody, I changed my opinion on at various points throughout the book, but when the latter section was from his POV my feelings towards him completely changed, I was in awe of him. His character was written so true to teenage boys!

The journey that we saw our characters go on, a journey of love and self discovery and joy and sadness and everything inbetween was truly beautiful.

One of my favourite things about this book was how it introduced topics that should be discussed and included in conversation. Namely, the topic of casual sex, the topic of consensual sex and the topic of therapy. The author wove these into the book perfectly.

The ending of this book made me SOB, it was the most fitting ending to the most wonderful book.

I have nothing but praise for The Pastel Effect and Arly Carmack and her writing. This was amazing and I honestly would put this as my favourite read of the year so far.

Until next time, Em xxx